definitely doula-ing

I'm moving forward with the doula bit. I'm going to try and find one. I think it's just too important to not do... a' doula'do!

It's kind of funny - I remember I was pretty sure I was going to get an epidural and go the drug route. I was just like, well, whyever not? I'm no super-pain-lady, total wimp-assed me. The thing that changed me was reading about what it does to the baby. Moxie's got enough going on with her, you know. She doesn't need more. Like residual drugs in her system, a heart monitor on her little scalp... a vacuum sucking her out.

Knowing how much of a wuss I am, knowing how paralyzed Mikey gets when I'm upset, I really think we're going to need someone else there to keep us on track, keep me from succumbing to spinal taps and lovely drugs and keep the hospital from splicing me open. And hopefully do something wickedly nice with the hospital atmosphere (there were some pretty good stories in the books about that atmospheres created by doulas...).

I really wish I could go to The Farm though and have her with Ina May Gaskin and her awesome army of midwives. Wouldn't that be the greatest?

a doula-do

It struck me all of the sudden that Mikey and I are like newborn babes in this whole area of childbirth. Yes, I've had a child - but since it was a scheduled c-section (breech), I know nothing but nothing of labour. The stages. What to expect. Nada!

All I do know is that everyone in my world that's had a baby in the past three years had an emergency c-section. Except for Stefanie, who was also the only one who brought a doula in with her. Every*one else had an emergency c-section. That's quite a lot of people actually, and is definitely worrisome to me, me who is only slightly terrified of having another c-section and having to face that hideous recovery. Shudder.

I waddled over to my trusty local library and took out lots of books on childbirth: The Birth Book (by Sears), Ina May's Guide to Childbirth (Ina May Gaskin), Your Best Birth (by Ricki Lake and her friend) and yes, Birthing From Within (Pam Horowitz). Thanks to rampant insomnia, I'm almost done with all of them.

It makes me so sad that the whole birth experience has boiled down to this fight... you know, getting rid of these interventions that tend to do more harm than good. Getting an advocate for yourself. And at the same time, I'm rolling up my sleeves to prepare for said fight. I just don't want to put my baby through a lot of drugs, I don't want to put myself through a long, rough recovery. I want - no, make that need - to be able to walk after birth. I must be able to walk. I need to be able to watch and care for Micah on my leave as well as Moxie. That is definitely not going to happen if I have another c-section.

I'm thinking I need to get a doula. No, we can't really afford one, but then, can I really afford to be so struck with another major surgery?

pregnantly procrastinating

I'm supposed to have been working assiduously from home all this past week... the furloughs that blanket the university don't (fortunately or not) affect me, with my outside-funded salary. Yes, so I was supposed to have been pounding out proposals and plans in addition to the emails and reports.

I didn't though. I only worked on emails and reports. I am terrifically uninspired for the proposals and plans right now. Miss-Jaded-Me thinks why bother? What's the point? What's actually going to happen, hmm? I'll write some 5-page proposal and put my heart in it and then it'll just sit around and not be implemented. Or worse, be "implemented" by some slacker that won't do squat. I'll come back from maternity leave and fix everything up; said slacker will get credit. Because this is what happens and I think I just don't feel like doing it right now...

I'm not motivated.

Of course this is coupled to the fact that my brain power seems to be directly decreasing in proportion to my belly burgeoning. I don't care about the proposals the way I care about the dust in the corner of my bedroom. Or the baby clothes that need to be sorted. Filling up the wiper warmer, buying some infant diapers. Finding a car seat that is pink.

That kind of thing.

Lying right next to my hands as I type are a lot of of contract budgets and I'm soooooooooooo bored. But I have got to finish this - I'm too much of a working ox to not. Mooo.

growing wings

I found the thing that got me out of my rut: I'm just glad and grateful that I've been able to have the experience of growing and having children. That I somehow found the right partner for me.

This time, just 3 short years ago, I was giving up on it ever happening.

And now, look. How blessed am I. My Mikey. My beautiful, wonderful toddling boy, Micah. Growing rainbow-tiger-girl, Moxie. I'm bitching because I won't get much time off - but think of all that I do have. It's pretty amazing. Pretty glorious. Pretty damn awesome.

I am grateful.


PS -
I still think the US has barbaric maternity leave policies

a knotted ache

I'm trying to keep in mind everyone who has it worse than me in regard to maternity leave:

1. My cousin Sue: besides the fact that she left the hospital the same day she pushed her son out (she couldn't afford to stay longer as she didn't have insurance), she only had 2 weeks off for maternity leave

2. Pat N: she went back to work after 6 weeks (this is getting close to me though - only 2 weeks' difference)

3. The Chinese lady from the Good Earth: she popped out her baby in the rice field and went right back to hoeing

In some ways, I can't say I think #3 had it all that bad - I don't mind working - that's not the issue. I mind leaving my baby.

A coworker recently returned from her 5-month maternity leave, all a'glow, positively beaming. She boiled her happiness down to her baby being in good care (MIL and sister) and the fact that she hadn't had a day away from her baby for her whole leave - only lots of date and regular nights out...

Ha! My own mother took care of my baby when I went back to work and not only did I not have a day away from my boy during my 5-month maternity leave, but I didn't have any date nights or nights out either.

And I was a wreck, mildly put.

I literally felt like my heart had been ripped out, my brain simply could not function. I am not the type of person who is wired to be away from my babies. No matter who is taking care of them, no matter how much time I've had, no matter what.

Which brings me back to this. I don't know what to do. I feel like just packing a bag and leaving. If we move back to Fiji, I know how to live off the land (thanks, Mom and Dad, for insisting on being subsistence farmers!). Maybe we could move to Montana? Montana seems to be an exotic place, ripe with possibility. Except for those winters, maybe.

If I find a way to supplement the income, I can stay at home for longer. I can get up to 5 months off - it's just that any time after June 30th is unpaid. I'm just struggling in how to strum up the energy to get a supplemental income together.

I was thinking that - HOLY SHIT - I am only going to have enough time to heal and then bam, I'll be back. No time for much else.

Bleh. What a long, depressing post. Sorry about that. I need to figure out a way to not be sad about this and make something positive happen. I think I'm going to take a shower now and think of cousin Sue and then think of stay-at-home jobs...

If you think of anything, would you let me know? Please?

For some reason, it also helps to hear of other people that have also done this and stayed sane... or people who have worse leaves.

Thanks

this plush american life

Still fiercely miserable in the throes of my last month of being pregnant, I got caught up this week in the details of my maternity leave.

Let me just say: I think the US is barbaric. It's just wrong for a society to have no universal standard of maternity leave, in which a job like mine is considered good because I can take 10 weeks off at 70% pay. Teachers, after all, get nothing.

It's so fucked up.

When I was looking at the calendars with the HR lady yesterday and together trying to work out my best plan of action, I was struggling to not lay my head down on my desk and just bawl. Little tears were escaping in the corners of my right eye - I just kept my hand up on my face so she wouldn't notice (she didn't).

The finally-crafted end plan has me out from mid-April to the end of June. Returning to work July 1st, but using a combination of vacation days, leave without pay and regular working time, I'll be making 70% pay for that month and working mostly 1-2 days a week.

And this is good for the US - that I can have "that much" time... and "that much" time means I'll leave my little baby when she is 2 months old.

I don't know how I'm going to be able to do this.

cheese and...

My hands resemble raw pale, pink, plump, pork sausages. Constant pain from the swelling and the carpal tunnel. My wedding band, usually so loose, now cuts into all that swollen finger flesh.

The left side of my upper rib cage is in perpetual pain - dull, aching. Then the space right under my left boob is digs in sharply. Like a cramp or something. I have trouble breathing. My belly is heavy and feels like it's falling out. My feet are so gigantic I am now a full size and a half larger than usual. And they hurt, they really*really hurt. My back aches. My skin is dry, uncontrollably itchy, even right after I slather lotion on. It just is. I have horrible heartburn, even just from drinking water.

To top off this whine list is (no! not cheese!) but the fact that this baby kicks.
I mean, she WALLOPS me. I was kind of curious about whether or not it was quite this way with Micah, but according to my blog at that time, it wasn't, really: it was more like, discomfort. He was just a little soccer player. Not a head-butting bladder blaster who riverdances on the side.

This little girl is at it. To say she's 'got Moxie' is such an understatement.

One thing that is pretty freakin' awesome about this is that I am not longer worried about Ds. I mean, zilch. It's not on the spectrum of my frame anymore. The reality is: this is a little person. A baby in me. An extremely active baby. I'm in the final stages of growing this person.

This hits 'people first' in a whole new way. It's like I can't think of anything OTHER than people first right now.

Frankly, it's a relief.